Security beefed up to enforce yatra ban

UP government on Wednesday started mobilising police personnel to thwart the banned chaurasi kos yatra planned by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) in six districts near the temple town of Ayodhya.

While the state government banned the yatra on Monday, the VHP leaders are adamant on taking it out between August 25 and September 13.

Thus, the highways linking these six communally sensitive districts —Barabanki, Faizabad, Gonda, Basti, Bahraich and Ambedkarnagar — would be barricaded.

A police team would be deployed at each barricade to check vehicles and frisk the suspicious people.

A police officer said the members of the VHP and its subsidiary organisations would be not allowed to enter these districts.

They would be taken into custody if they try to force their way in, he added.

The administration has been put on alert and there are plans to deploy the PAC and the RAF.

Police reinforcements wre being rushed from Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Sitapur, Sultanpur and Azamgarh to maintain law and order, the officer added.

Six additional superintendent of police (ASP) and 18 deputy superintendent of police (DSP) rank officers are being sent to the six districts.

Principal secretary, Home RM Srivastava said, “If the VHP insists on going ahead with the chaurasi kos padyatra, the state government would deal with it firmly.

The traditional chaurasi kos padyatra is completed between April 25 and May 20 in Ayodyha. The state government would not allow a new tradition that has the potential to create a law and order problem in the state.”

RAJNATH, SHAH TO VISIT LUCKNOWAmidst the saffron build-up for the temple cause through the banned chaurasi kos yatra of saints in Ayodhya from August 25, BJP chief Rajnath Singh would arrive in the state capital on a two-day visit from Thursday.

Shah had, during his recent visit to Ayodhya, committed support for thechaurasi kos march that has now been banned by the UP government.

While BJP chief would be in Lucknow for attending a book release function of party MLC and senior leader Hriday Narain Dixit on Thursday, besides attending a traders’ meet on Friday, yet with the controversy that chaurasi kos has kicked up, BJP sources insist that the political implications of Rajnath’s visit “can’t be ignored.”